India Notifies Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026 to Replace the Aircraft Rules, 1937 From 1 January 2027

NEW DELHI, India, 3 November 2026 – The Ministry of Civil Aviation has notified the Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026, a new rulebook for Indian civil aviation that will replace the Aircraft Rules, 1937 on 1 January 2027. The notification, numbered G.S.R. 957(E) and dated 26 October 2026, appears in the Gazette of India (Extraordinary) issue dated 29 October; Business Standard reports that it was published on Saturday, 31 October.

The rules are made under the Bharatiya Vayuyan Adhiniyam, 2024, the law that replaced the Aircraft Act, 1934. For passengers, the part getting most attention is rule 192 on airfares.

What the new rules replace

Rule 220 of the new code repeals the Aircraft Rules, 1937, Part IX of the Aircraft Rules, 1920 and the Radio Telephone Operator (Restricted) Certificate and Licence Rules, 2025. Licences, approvals, orders and penalties issued under the old rules are saved, so existing pilot licences and airline permits do not lapse on 1 January.

The final text has 220 rules in eight chapters, and the gazette file runs to 517 pages with the Hindi and English versions. A draft was published for public comment in July 2025 (G.S.R. 466(E)), and the notification says the objections and suggestions received were taken into account. Business Standard notes that the broad framework stays largely similar: many existing requirements on registration, airworthiness, licensing, flight operations and tariffs carry over into one consolidated code.

Airfares: what rule 192 says

Under rule 192, every airline running scheduled services must set its fares based on factors including the cost of operation, submit them to the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in a form and at intervals the DGCA will specify, and publish them on its website or other digital platforms. The DGCA will monitor these fares.

Two parts matter directly to people buying tickets:

• Full price shown. The booking website and the ticket must show the total amount payable and a complete break-up of fare, tax, fees, cancellation charges, refund conditions and any other charge, listed separately.
• Emergency power for the Centre. If the Central Government is of the opinion that an “extraordinary situation” has arisen, it can issue written directions in the public interest. These must be proportionate and stay in force only for the period stated.

The rules do not define an extraordinary situation and do not set a fare cap. As The Week points out, airlines have set their own fares since deregulation in 1994, and more transparency will not necessarily make tickets cheaper.

How this differs from the old rules and the draft

Under rule 135 of the 1937 rules, airlines were free to fix reasonable tariffs and had to display them on their websites. Sub-rule (4) let the DGCA issue directions to an airline it found had set excessive or predatory fares or engaged in oligopolistic practice, the Ministry of Civil Aviation explained in a 2022 statement. That DGCA power to direct an airline over its fares is not repeated in the new rule 192; the new power to step in sits with the Central Government instead.

The final rule is also shorter than the July 2025 draft. The draft would have barred airlines and their agents from charging more than the fares they had filed, let the DGCA issue directions if they did, and asked airlines to file their pricing methodology with a DGCA Tariff Monitoring Unit. Those clauses do not appear in the notified text. The draft’s fare break-up did not mention cancellation charges or refund conditions; the final version does.

Other changes for airlines and owners

Beyond fares, the code brings together rules on airworthiness, maintenance, aerodrome licensing and flight and duty time limits for pilots and cabin crew, IANS reports. Two provisions stand out in the gazette text:

• Faster deregistration for lessors. Under rule 44(2), when a lessor or financier holding an IDERA under the Cape Town Convention applies with the required documents, the government must cancel the aircraft’s Indian registration within five working days, without seeking the operator’s consent.
• Shared ownership of aircraft. Rule 188 sets up DGCA-authorised aircraft management service providers. An aircraft owned by several people or companies can only be operated through such a provider or through a dry lease to a single operator, which matters for fractional ownership of business jets.

What happens next

The rules take effect on 1 January 2027. Several parts, including the form and frequency of fare filing and how fares are published, depend on requirements the DGCA still has to specify. FlyingFuel had not seen a press release from the ministry explaining the changes at the time of publishing, and will update this story when the DGCA issues its fare filing requirements.

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Sources: Gazette of India, G.S.R. 957(E), Bharatiya Vayuyan Niyam, 2026, 26 October 2026; Gazette of India, G.S.R. 466(E), draft rules, 11 July 2025; Ministry of Civil Aviation via PIB, 21 July 2022; Business Standard, 1 November 2026; The Week, 2 November 2026; IANS via Telangana Today, 2 November 2026.

Featured image: FlyingFuel graphic using a photo of the gate area of Terminal 3 at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport by Biswarup Ganguly, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.